Smith said: "We put together a plan for the wind up here and how to manage it and we trained on a surface just like this at our training centre."

Mulchrone finished off a fine move, while Fenby went over against his first club amid howls of protest from the home crowd, who felt Blair Cowan's pass in the build-up had been forward.

Irish moved Geraghty to inside centre to accommodate new fly-half Chris Noakes, who made his first start after joining from Auckland Blues.

Smith said: "Chris is an out and out 10 and part of the plan to manage the win was to have a left and right kicker at 10 and 12.

"The wind wasn't as substantial as we thought it would be, but having a ball player like Shane who has also good footwork at 12 was the key.

"Even though we didn't rack up a big score we asked more questions with Shane at number 12.

"Chris and Shane did well for us at 10 and 12, but we are a side that has to grind out wins in these sort of games and as we gain more confidence then we'll string a few wins together and we will get better."